HALOME: Now you see me now you don't
by Bobbish
Summary: A UNSC Powler ends up in Counsle space... along with it's smart AI Nicknamed "Josh" Judging by the citidal's attitude towards AI's this should be intresting. All of the prowlers crew are OC. Told from Josh's POV. Chapter 4 now up!
1. Prolouge

A halo mass effect Crossover

By Bobbish

Legend:**  
Bold**= Author's note  
_Italic + Quotation marks = _Internal monolog/ thoughts  
_Italic = _Ship names or emphasis on a word  
**this is a Halo and Mass Effect crossover. This story is told mainly from the POV of an AI called Josh. I always thought that the difference in attitude regarding artificial intelligence between the UNSC and the council races had a great potential for a plot device. Now I won't bore you any longer. Let there be awesomeness! Please review! Feel free to make suggestions on how to make the story better. 'course, I probably won't listen! I can be stubborn that way sometimes. ;)  
**  
**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HALO OR MASS EFFECT! IF I DID I WOULD BE VERY HAPPY AND I'D GIVE THE SPARTANS LAZER EYES. THAT IS ALL. I AINT MAKING MONEY OFF THIS!**

Prologue:

A boring day in space

13:00 hours, 2552 CE (military calendar),  
UNSC _Now you see me_, prowler class.  
Undisclosed location.  
Some times I wish more happened in my "life". Unfourtantly, excitement means something has gone wrong. When one is deep inside covenant space in a stealthed prowler waiting and observing, you _really_ don't want something to go wrong as you will probably be vaporized along with the rest of the ship and crew. Watching enemy ships go by while safely cloaked at the edge of the system gets pretty tedious and boring after the first month. Anyhow, you may be wondering why I finger quoted the word "life". Well, I'm not exactly _alive_, see... I'm an AI and my name is Joshua, but everyone just calls me Josh. Now that the introductions are finished, let's move on to the story.  
So there I was, lounging on the holo-projector idly watching the crew go about their business. Of course I wasn't really idle. AI's are almost never idle. But I won't bore you with the details. They aren't important right now. Anyways, my daydreaming was suddenly interrupted by an alarm. "Josh! Give me a SITREP!" Captain Smith shouted. "The radiation matches that of a slipspace rupture." I said, suddenly all business." Thought the magnitude is many times larger than anything I've seen before!" The captain cursed (a sentiment shared by me and the rest of the crew, if you know what I mean). See? This is what happens when there's excitement! This day turned out to be a lot more interesting than I expected.

**And that was the Prologue! I hope you enjoyed that. Please review. No hate mail please. This is my first story.**

**NOTE: I edited away the spelling and grammar mistakes (At least most of them). I also got rid of the part with EDI simply because this is from Josh's POV. Not EDI's I should have more chapters soon.**


	2. Chapter 1

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Games » Halo » **HALOME: Now you see me now you don't**

Author: Bobbish

Rated: T - English - General - Reviews: 10 - Published: 02-21-11 - Updated: 03-02-11

id:6766689

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HALOME crossover: Now you see me now you don't

Chapter 1: Discovery

The bridge was in chaos. Emergency lights flashed as men and women shouted orders and counter-orders.

"Sir!" Someone called "The CCS-Class is bearing down on us!" I ran a few calculations and came to a conclusion. "Captain, the 'covies will be in weapon's range in about 60 seconds! I recommend we slip out-system immediately." Captain Smith replied "Will the anomaly affect the jump? "Look" I replied "The way I see it, we have two options; one, stay here and get blasted into slag by the 'covies…. Or we could jump on a random vector that could take us somewhere totally awesome. It's your choice."

"Captain! They're charging their plasma cannon!" The crewman yelled. "Josh, get us the hell out of here!" Smith Bellowed "Spinning up jump drive" I replied "Hold on to your hats people!" With that the prowler blasted into slipspace.

As we hurtled through the void of slipspace, I Sighed inwardly; we had made it. _"That was too close for comfort."_ I thought. "Josh!" a gruff voice yanked me from my thoughts. "How're we doing?" Smith inquired. I replied "The slipstream is slightly unstable. It may have been that anomaly."

"Will it be a problem?"

"No sir, I don't think so. We should be fine… I hope." Smith grunted. "We have no idea where we're 'gonna come out. We should activate the stealth systems before we transition." I smirked "One step ahead of you."

A few hours later, my sensors started to read energy cascades that kept increasing in intensity. _"I wonder what's going on." _I thought. All of a sudden, there was a huge radiation flare. The last thing I saw before my sensors were shut down was the sight of the entire crew slumping over at their workstations.

After hurriedly rebooting all of my systems, I heaved a (simulated) sigh of relief. Then I noticed that the entire crew was comatose. Frowning, I activated the neural stimulator's that are implanted along with the neural lace. These stimulators allow me to speed up the recovery time of my crew if they are rendered unresponsive. I knew that it would still take a bit for them to wake up.

With that piece of business taken care of, I took a moment to take in my surroundings. I gasped. An unidentified ship was approaching the _Now you see me_ …. And we weren't cloaked! The ship was about the size of a UNSC corvette, except smaller… and sleeker. The strangest thing about it though, was the markings on the side of the ship, in clear English, SSV _Marathon_. Clearly named after the battle of Marathon. This meant it was a human ship, but this ship didn't match any known human ships. How odd. I decided to hail it. _"Maybe they're friendly. Then again, maybe not. Aww hell, it's worth a shot."_

I established a COM with the strange ship. "This is the UNSC _now you see me now you don't. _My crew is unresponsive, we are requesting assistance."

"_**This is the SSV **_**Marathon**_**…"**_

"I already know your ship's name."

"…_**.How?"**_

"I looked out a window and read the words painted on your goddamn hull!"

"_**But we're outside of visual range! How could you do that?"**_

"I used my cameras to magnify your ship."

"_**A-Are you human?"**_

"My creators were human." I replied _"He seems a little worried." _I thought.

"_**Creators? Are you some kind of VI?"**_ He replied. There was assort of hopeful tone in his voice. _"What's a VI?" _I wondered. Quickly thinking, I hacked into their data base. It actually had some pretty good security, but it was no match for a smart AI. As I read through their "Codex", my thoughts grew more and more worried. _"I probably shouldn't tell them I'm an AI. It would probably freak them out. Alright I know what to do." _

"Yes, I am an experimental Smart VI. My name is Joshua, but you can call me Josh." _"Not entirely a lie…. Well, most of it is, but that's not the point!"_ _**"Oh, good, I was worried for a minute I was talking to one of those illegal AI's. Anyways, what do you need?" **_By that time I had finished hacking their star charts. "Actually, the captain's just waking up. We don't need any help." _**"Just the captain? What about the rest of your crew?" **_"I am perfectly capable of flying the ship alone." _**"Then why did you need the captain?"**_ He asked. "He tells me where to go. My job is to help navigate the ship as well as advise him." There was a pause _**"Before you go, we need to check your credentials the term "UNSC" does not show up in any of our databases, well unless you were sent by the old United Nations Security Council, which I doubt." **_

My sensors indicated that Smith had woken up. "Did you hear all that?" I inquired

"Yes. Ohh… my head is killing me! Why did you have to use the neural stimulators?" He complained. "You were unconscious." I said simply "What should we do?" His mouth stretched into a wicked smile "Let's ghost 'em!" I laughed "Right away sir!"

Meanwhile, the _Marathon's _Captain, Looked at the strange craft. It was about the size of a frigate, or maybe a small cruiser. It was either a large frigate or a small cruiser. He couldn't decide. It had two segmented "wings" jutting from either side. It looked rather stealthy. The bridge was up in front. It could've been a minelayer, but he wasn't sure. The captain turned and ordered "Bring them in for suspicion of possessing an illegal AI." Then he looked out the window again and gasped; The ship had simply disappeared.

**I hope you enjoyed chapter two of HALOME: Now you see me now you don't. I'm still trying to think of a good title for this. If you have any suggestions, please… err suggest them. **

**Bobbish out.**

**Edit: I fixed the ship size issue, thanks to Robo Reader 21 for pointing out the problems. By the way, I would really appreciate it if you people would review more often. Don't be shy!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Hey! I'm back! Thanks for all the reviews. Now I want to say, I'm not sure I'll have shepherd and his crew show up, I'm not really sure if I can portray them correctly. Thus, I am going to write a segment with Shepard and you can tell me how bad I suck at writing other people's characters. Any potential team ups will be after my OC's have engaged in some hijinks, maybe get a bit of a reputation… unofficial of course! For those of you that are interested, Josh's avatar is that of a young man in an engineer's jumpsuit wearing a UNSC mechanic's cap. He has unkept hair and green eyes. He looks mostly normal (except for being like two feet tall and holographic) but has a bit of a blue glow (duh!) and if you look closely at his eyes, He has lines of code circling the iris and the pupil. **

**By the way, please review! The story alerts are great but really, there's nothing like finding out what people think about your work. Now that we've gotten that cleared, let's continue with the story!**

CHAPTER 2: Questions and answers

"So you think we've found another human civilization?" exclaimed Smith

"Nah…. I don't think I'm dammed sure! What's more, their history is pretty much identical up until the mid to late-21st century." I replied the code around my green eyes flaring brightly (That happens when I get excited by the way) "What! Did we end up in an alternate dimension? You know, like in those old stories?"

"…. No. I don't think the slipspace field was strong enough for _that_, a different galaxy, maybe, possibly even the same galaxy; we really haven't explored that much of it. Take your pick." Captain Smith took off his cap and ran his hand through his greying hair. "What do we know Josh?" He inquired

"Well." I began "This humanity never achieved FTL on their own. They found some ruins on Mars. Those ruins had a data cache that revealed several things; one, the existence of a substance called 'Element Zero', or Ez0. When an electrical current is run through 'Ez0' it generates dark energy, which can be manipulated in to a 'Mass Effect field'. A positive current increases mass, while a negative one decreases' it. One can use it for FTL. This FTL tech is not capable of traveling between star clusters. They rely in 'Mass Relays'. A mass relay is a massive structure built by the extinct 'Protheans', the aliens who constructed the outpost on Mars." "Great. Another technologically advanced race that went extinct millions of years ago." Captain Smith muttered under his breath "Why can't the universe be more original?"

I glared at him "I'm not finished yet." I growled "Anyways, these 'Protheans' disappeared only 50,000 years ago. Not to mention, the year is only 2183 C.E... Two; the first contact, while violent, did not escalate into a long bloody war of extermination, instead it was a relatively short bloodless campaign. The first Communicating civilization encountered was a nation called the 'Turian Hierarchy'. Luckily, the rest of the galaxy noticed the mobilization of Turian fleets and armies and quickly intervened; they successfully found a diplomatic solution. It's been 35 years since then and humans are still the new guys and are slightly resented. Though that certainly beats being declared a stain upon the universe and having your planets glassed from orbit by a bunch of fanatics." Smith laughed humorlessly "That is better! Maybe we should actually talk to these people."

"Err, one problem; Artificial Intelligence has been banned. They would arrest you and probably destroy me." "That is a Problem." Smith grunted back

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Josh

Several hours later.

The _Now you see me_ was drifting cloaked at the edges of the serpent nebulae. The amount of space traffic here was astounding. As we slowly flew farther into the purple cloud, I became quite impressed with the Protheans engineering skills. The citadel was enormous, not as big as a halo ring mind you but huge still! If I had breath, it would have been taken away. _"I can't wait to get into its systems!" _I thought excitedly. Just due to the huge number of people living here meant that the systems had to be enormous.

Smith must've noticed my excitement and gruffly said "No. not yet. Let's not antagonize them anymore. You rooting around their network might draw attention."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I said dejectedly. "How are our food supplies?" he asked. As I checked the inventory I realized that we would need to pick up more food sometime soon.

"Well, I replied there's good news and there's bad news…" Smith sighed "What is it Josh?"

It was going to be a long day.

Gunny

Gunny had never seen so many aliens in one place. Well, at least non hostile ones. In fact, this was the first time in a while he had stepped off a shuttle and without needing to worry about getting shot. Still, it paid to be prepared. He grunted as he adjusted his M6G handgun in its hip holster. The long ONI issue coat was less conspicuous than the marine's fatigues, but still pretty damn conspicuous. His COM unit crackled and Josh's voice piped into his ear; _**"The shop is down this street to the left. Don't forget the milk!"**_ He said. Gunny could imagine the amused smile on the AI's face. "Ha Ha , asshole." He muttered.

"_**I heard that Gunny."**_ Josh said. Gunny sighed. Josh could be so annoying sometimes. There was a pause on the COM. Then, _**"You ever wonder why we're here?" **_ Gunny was tempted to shoot himself right then and there.

**And there! The third chapter! Hope you like it, don't forget to review. I'd like to have put more in the chapter but I'm tired and I want ti put SOMETHNG up. **


	4. Chapter 3

HALOME: Now you see me now you don't

Chapter 3: The prisoner

Gunny

Gunny rounded the corner and came to a storefront. There was a holographic display that had the name of the store emblazoned on it. "This looks like the place." Pvt John said "Let's go in then." He replied gruffly. Gunny reached to palm the Holo-switch that was floating in front of the door. His hand went right through. "Josh, why isn't the door working?" He growled into his COM.

"_**The holographic interfaces here aren't like the covie ones. You need a glove with special control chips wired into it." **_Josh's voice crackled through his earpiece. "Why not just use a touchscreen then? I mean, it would be cheaper and people wouldn't ever get locked out 'cause they aint 'wearin gloves?" _**"I dunno, just get some gloves somehow. Then you should be able to get in."**_ Gunny sighed; this day was getting better and better.

Josh

I watched as the marine, sporting some slightly used haptic interface gloves, entered the store. I had spent the last few hours creating a credit account for us, into which I funneled a small percentage of some guy's income. I watched through Gunny's head-cam as he entered the store. There were a few customers inside who glanced curiously at the newcomers, before going back to whatever they were doing. The undercover marines walked up to the front desk. There was a Turian who looked up from his laptop. "Can I help you?" he asked. "Yeah, do you do deliveries?" Gunny inquired.

"Yes we do. What do need?"

"We need enough food to support about 90 humans for an extended period of time." I face palmed at Gunny's stupidity.

"Err, yeah… were should we deliver it?"

"Just take it to docking bay 7 and drop it off on the docks."

"Okay. Can you pay for it?" The Turian asked. Gunny showed them his credit chip. "All right it will be there in a few hours. Thank you for your business." Then gunny and his squad mates walked out the door.

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Turian Shopkeeper

The shopkeeper waited until the strange human was out of sight. Then, he went to the COM system and Dialed up C-sec. _**"This is C-sec, state your business."**_ Came a brisk voice over the COM.

"There were some rather suspicious people who came in my store."

"_**What made them suspicious?"**_

"They asked for a strange amount of food and water. They also were dressed strange and didn't seem to grasp the concept of haptic interface gloves."

"_**Look bud, we have more important things to worry about than…" **_ There was a pause, then, a new voice came on. This one was rough and gravely. _**"Now sir. Where were they headed?"**_

"They told me to drop off the supplies at docking bay 7."

"_**Deliver the supplies. We will detain them for questioning. C-sec out."**_

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Gunny

The supplies arrived as promised. A 'truck' was driven in by a Quarian worker. She seemed rather nervous for some reason. As the supply "truck" came to a halt, gunny signaled his squad to unload the food and load it into the shuttle they had 'liberated'. They had just finished loading the food when two C-sec officers burst thru the entryway.

"You are bound by law! Lay down your weapons and put your hands in the air!"

"Look bud," Gunny replied coolly "I may need to check my math, but I think you're at a disadvantage here. There's ten of us, and only two of you." At that moment, a SWAT team barged in the door.

"Or not." Gunny muttered. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the quarian and held her in front of him as a meat shield. He whipped out his M6G and aimed it over her shoulder. She promptly fainted. Behind him, he heard the sound of his squad mates charging their handguns. Two fully tooled up Marines aimed their weapons, anMA5C assault rifle and an M7 SMG respectively, out of the shuttle's door. "Back up real slowly." He whispered into his throat mike.

"Stand down! You are bound by law! Lay down your weapons or we will open fire!"

Gunny laughed "No you won't! We have a hostage, remember?"

"Open fire!"

_"Aw shit…"_ gunny thought. He quickly tossed the quarian out of the line of fire a he yelled; "RETURN FIRE!" He took aim at one of the C-sec officers and fired. The armor piercing HE round blew the man's head off. He shifted his aim to one of the SWAT team and fired…. Only to have the round deflected by the officer's kinetic barrier. _"Right they have shields. Oh well, nothing I haven't had to face before."_ He took cover in the doorway as bullets whizzed by and smashed into the shuttle. "Get us out of here!" he yelled at the pilot. He saw one of the SWAT officer's shields pop and took the opportunity to take one last shot between the shuttle's closing doors. The bullet penetrated the Turian's hardsuit, but didn't kill him. The shuttle blasted away.

"_**Gunny, you'd better strap yourself in, it's gonna be a wild ride!"**_ The pilot said thru the intercom, as the shuttle dodged and weaved, trying to lose any pursuers.

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Josh

I watched as the shuttle was blown to bits by Citadel fighters. Gunny walked up to the holotank and grinned; "We sure gave them the slip there didn't we?" I grinned back. The plan had worked perfectly. The crew of the shuttle had loaded all the food into vacuum-proof boxes, followed by themselves. The boxes were then flushed out of the shuttle and the controls were slaved to a subsystem of mine (I call it Bob) and we left the shuttle to its fate while we picked up the boxes and ghosted to the edge of the system. _"Now, I think it's time we had a chat with our new guest."_

_000000000000_

The crime scene was buzzing with activity. There were C-sec officers everywhere, Taking pictures searching for evidence. One of them, a young asari, was crouched over some small cyndrilcal objects. "Hey, sergeant! I found something!" An experienced looking Turian stood up from where he was examining one of the bodies. "What is it Shariia?" he asked. "Come look." She replied. He walked over to where the asari was crouching. "What are those?" he asked pointing at the bullet casings. A human officer who had walked over said "I think they're bullet casings! Like from the old guns!" The sergeant got up. This was strange. The humans who had killed his officers had been using old style guns. But those shouldn't be effective against shields! He moved to phone this new piece of info in to dispatch, but a hand on his shoulder made him turn around. There, standing in front of him was the Spectre, Saren. "I need that evidence." He said in a quietly menacing manner "And if you don't give it to me, I'll take it from you."

**DUN DUN DUN! So Saren is after the crew of the **_**Now you See me**_**! This should give my main characters a good nemesis! Anyways, I think Saren is going to be a huge pain in the ass for Josh and the crew. Mybe he'll kill some of them, that way, they will have a reason to team up with shepherd when the time comes. Please R&R.**

**Bobbish out.**

**Next: awkward conversations!**


	5. Chapter 4

HALOME: Now you see me now you don't

Chapter 4: Awkward conversations

The quarian

The quarian awoke in a strange room. She tried to rise from the cold steel chair… only to find that her wrists and ankles were bound by metal shackles. _"Keelah! Where am I?"_ Suddenly a harsh light flared into existence. She could only make out the silhouette of what seemed to be a human. **"What is your name?"** a garbled voice questioned. "w-what?" Tala stuttered. **"I asked you your name you can tell me, or you can… OW!" **The _Thump!_ Of a heavy boot connecting with someone's shin resounded throughout the chamber. **"Hey! Stop messing with the interrogation!" **Another voice rang out, this one non-garbled "Gunny! You idiot!" The second silhouette reached over and flipped a switch. The lights dimmed to a more comfortable level. There were two humans standing there. One of them looked beaten, worn and slightly disappointed. The other one looked younger, but no less experienced, just in a different way. The older one whined "I totally had the whole interrogation thing going! The bright lights in her face, the garbled voice and everything!" The younger one replied "Gunny, we're supposed to be talking to her. Not interrogating her!"

"Awww, but I always wanted to interrogate someone!" Gunny complained, pouting (being a battle hardened marine, he looks kinda funny when he pouts). "Then you should've joined ONI instead of the marines." The young one remarked pointedly. "Err; are you going to let me out of this chair?" The quarian piped up. The young man nodded and went about releasing the clamps on the interrogation chair. As he did this, he introduced himself "My name's Mark McCobbish. I'm the resident spook here on the _Now you see me Now you don't_. The captain wants to speak with you." Mark turned "Gunny! Dismissed! Go show our guest around." Gunny saluted and walked out the door, grumbling.

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Josh

I laughed as I watched Gunny's antics in the interrogation room. I was listening in on their conversation. Gunny was saying "And this is the engine room. That's our drive core over there, behind the radiation shielding; don't go close to it, weird stuff happens 'round an active unit." the quarian perked up a bit. Gunny continued his tour "And that's our chief engineer, Rob. Hey Rob!" Gunny waved at Rob. Rob rolled his eyes and waved back. The quarian seemed to finally get up enough nerve to ask a question "um… what are those over there?" She nervously pointed towards the glowing conduits that were attached to each engine. "I don't work down here." Gunny replied "Hey Rob! What _are_ those things anyway?" Rob looked up from whatever it was he was doing and said "Those are the plasma coils. They're important. Don't touch them!" He glared at Gunny "I know what you're like! Now move on before you break something! We don't want a repeat of what happened with those fusion coils last week. That took me forever to get cleaned up!"

"I didn't do that! You don't have any proof!" Rob brandished his wrench "OUT!" He yelled. Gunny decided to move on just then.

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The Quarian

All in all, The Quarian's pilgrimage was not going well. First, her ship was stolen which marooned her on the citadel with little to no money. Second, she had been kidnapped by a bunch of crazy humans who kept on staring at her like they'd never seen a non-human before. When she asked about it, Gunny had answered offhandedly "We've seen aliens before. Just not friendly ones." That was strange. Even most turians were more or less friendly to them, and the humans weren't at war with anyone at the moment. Except maybe the batarians, but that wasn't really a war. It didn't make any sense! The only good thing about all this was that they seemed friendly enough, except that Mark fellow. Even with all his good humor, there was something unnerving about him. _"What kind of ship is this?"_ she thought _"It doesn't seem to have any ezz0 on board and its design doesn't match any ships I know of."."_ She pretended to listen as her guide kept on babbling on about something like 'fusion coils' and 'slipspace' and something called 'The Covenant' and something about how a 'warthog' looked kind of like a big cat or something. She really wasn't following any of it, preoccupied with recent events as she was. They came to a door labeled 'bridge'. she had always liked the bridges on ships. They were always so full of activity and every one there had a sense of purpose. As they approached the door, the guard on station outside it said "I'm sorry. The captain doesn't want anyone in the CIC right now.

0000000000000000

Josh

Smith turned back to the star chart. "We need to find someplace to lay low for a while. We're wanted criminals now." I pondered this for a moment, then said "We could hide in the Terminus Systems. They don't really fall under the citadel's jurisdiction." Smith looked over the summery and said "Yeah, but it's crawling with pirates and raiders. Our ship would be a big score. She has tech that no one else here has."

"But we _are _a military ship. We have our stealth and our weapons, not to mention, the squad of marines on board." I countered.

Smith gave in "Alright, is our jump drive compatible with a mass relay?" he asked. "Probably." Smith sigh "Is that a good probably or a bad probably?" He cut me off as I opened my mouth to reply. "Don't tell me! You explain, we'll be her for days let's just go with probably." I opened my mouth again. He cut me off (Yet another time!" "If I let you explain, we'll be here for days. Just jump."

" I announced over the intercom, "All crew, prepare for a jump!" Blast shields lowered over the windows and alarms began to sound. I went to work calculating the slipspace collapse manifold. "Are the plasma coils charged?" I asked Rob _**"yes they are."**_He replied. "Spin up jump drive!" Smith bellowed

There was a chorus of "'aye sir" from around the CIC. The ship's slipspace drive began to hum. Then, seven high powered particle accelerators fired. This created several micro-black holes which quickly began to collapse. The real genius of the Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine was how it managed to manipulate those black holes into a stable portal into the slipstream. As I ignited the slipspace drive, the stars outside the window warped and distorted. Suddenly, a rift in the fabric of reality burst into view. We entered the portal and the light of the stars quickly gave way to the inky blackness of slipspace.

0000

Gunny

_"Slipspace transition complete."_ Rang over the intercom. The quarian standing next to him seemed curious…. Or at least, he thought so. It was kind of hard to tell what she was thinking, with that helmet in the way and all. "What's slipspace?" she asked in her heavily accented voice_. "It's another dimension used in FTL travel_." Came over the loudspeaker. Gunny turned and yelled "Nobody ever asked you loudspeaker guy!" The Quarian, who had been pondering Josh's answer, suddenly asked "How does it work?"

_ "Good god! Why does she have to ask about how it works?"_ flashed thru Gunny's mind. Out loud: "I don't know! I'm a Marine! Not a quantum physicist!" She seemed to consider this for a moment. Then she asked "If it's that complicated, why do you use it?"

"We use it 'cause it works!"

"Well if you put it that way, I guess."

"Stop asking so many questions." Gunny snapped. Internally _"What is it with her? Always asking questions? I don't know how this damn ship works! I just kill stuff!" _ Out loud, "Say, what's your name? I don't think you've told me yet."

**And I'm going to end this now. As the reason this chapter took so long was because I couldn't think of a name for the quarian. If you have any ideas, please, share them. Reviews are welcome! See you next time! **

**Bobbish out.**


	6. Chapter 5

**Why hello there! It's been a while (IMHO) since I updated this story and I'm sure you've all been wondering what's going on. Well, there are lots of distracting things going on in my life and I was sick for a week or so, that was distracting! **

**RoboReader21; Congratulations! You were the only one to respond to my request for a name! Thus I'm using it! I now bestow upon you an imaginary gold star! Give him a hand folks!**

HALOME: Now you see me now you don't

Chapter 5: I hate apostrophes!

Gunny

The quarian looked at gunny for a moment. She then said "My name is Val'Miea nar Fulsoom."

Gunny groaned inwardly _"Why do aliens always have crazy long names with lots of apostrophes?"_ Out loud: "That is a long name." Val'Miea nar Fulsoom looked at him in an exasperated manner, and said, "Most people just call me Val."

"Nice to meet you Val." Gunny replied, extending his hand. Val seemed a bit surprised and hesitated. Gunny, thinking that she didn't understand the whole 'shaking hands' concept, said "You're supposed to shake my hand at this point." Val replied exasperatedly, "I know that, it's just that no one's ever been this polite." _"She thinks I'm polite? Wow, those are some pretty low standards."_

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Val

Val looked around the narrow hallway, taking in the harsh angles and Gray walls. Not even the mining ships in the migrant fleet were this bleak and utilitarian! Her stomach grumbled just then, reminding her that she had not brought any food with her. She had to ask.

"Umm, gunny?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you guys have any food I could eat?"

Gunny pondered this for a moment, and then said "You hungry?"

"yes"

"Well, let's head down to the mess."

"I mean, do you have any food that quarians can eat." _Could he really not know about that?_ Flashed thru Val's mind. Gunny pondered this for a moment, then turned to the intercom and said "What's this all about loudspeaker guy?"

"_**You don't need to call me loudspeaker guy! Just call me by my name! Anyhow, Quarian's DNA is different than most other species. Eating human food would probably kill her."**_

Gunny pondered this for a moment, his brow furrowing up, then asked "Do we have any quarian food?"

"_**No… but I could probably rig one of the food processors to make something that she could eat. It probably won't taste so good and it probably wouldn't be good for her... but it would keep her fed until we can get some real food for her."**_

Val piped in just then "If it's not properly purified, I could get sick, as in _really_ sick."

"_**Ok, we could Filter the crap out of it and then set up a sterile field generator around the dispenser."**_

_Sterile field generator? That alone could be just what I need to complete my pilgrimage!_ Quarian's had always had problems when someone got hurt enough that they needed surgery. The operating rooms were as clean as possible, but patients still ran the risk of infection. Val just needed to ask, "Err, what's a sterile field generator?" Gunny answered "It generates a field that renders pretty much any germ sterile in its radius." _Keelah! The surgeons back in the fleet would love this!_ Gunny's voice interrupted her thoughts "Hey Josh, how long will it take to get the food processor modified?"

"_**Not too long, 9 to 10 hours. She'll survive 'til them."**_

00000000

Gunny

"So why haven't gone thru the relay yet?" gunny asked Josh for the 27th time in the last 2 minutes. You could practically hear Josh roll his eyes. _**"Any activity on the relay is going to draw attention; we want to wait until they allow civy traffic to resume. Then we can just hop thru and it won't draw so much attention. We'll be here a few days."**_ Gunny sighed and looked around the mess. It was a small room with three mess tables. Off to the side was the officer's lounge (rarely used). Val was sitting off to Gunny's right, tapping at her 'Omni-tool' or whatever it was she called it, trying to distract herself from her growling stomach. "When is the food processor gonna be ready? Val's whining is starting to get on my nerves."

"I wasn't whining!"

"Yes you were!"

"_**Woah! Calm down you two! It'll be ready in a few minutes. Then we just hope that Val here doesn't keel over and die. **_

Val jerked upright. "You wouldn't let that happen, would you? I kind of like being alive."

"_**There's a 99% chance this'll work!"**_ At that, Gunny burst into laughter. "Relax little miss has-mat suit, you'll be fine."

0000000000

Val

A few minutes later

The Makeshift "food" had an unpleasant texture, flavor, and was altogether not very good. However, it was edible. Val had watched with interest as some medical technicians helped the chef rig up a sterile field generator. It gave off an amber glow and, to Val' astonishment; the microbe count was reduced to practically nothing in a few moments. _This would make a great pilgrimage Gift! I'll have to see if I can figure out how to build one. _After eating, she noted the unpleasantness of the meal to Gunny. He just shrugged and said "Aww hell, it can't be any worse than field rations! One time, we ran out of food, so we had to eat bugs and snakes to stay alive! And another time, we had nothing to drink but ketchup for a whole month!" _That doesn't seem physically possible _Val shrugged as the marine proceeded to ramble on about several gruesome, yet strangely hilarious war stories.

0000000000000

Saren

Saren sat down at his work desk in his lair. He idly spun the bullet casing about on his desk, watching as the light from his table lamp caught the brass. He then noticed something imprinted on the side of the smooth brass: MISURA ARMOURYS. He bolted upright; those were the same markings on the weapons he had retrieved from the Derelict his minions had found! _These criminals came from wherever that derelict dreadnought came from!_ He smiled, suddenly this case (taken only to avoid arousing the counsel's suspicions, was suddenly more relevant. He got up and headed for the door. He was going to find these humans… and they would tell him all their secrets… after a bit of torture of course.

000000000000

Josh

A few days later

Omega was not a pretty sight if you ask me. It looked a lot like some sort of space jellyfish, with an asteroid where the body of the jellyfish would be with the additions of the station extending down to form the tentacles. The whole thing glowed with red light.

"Aint pretty is it?" I remarked

"Nope, not by half." Smith grunted back

We were going to let the crew get some shore time while we were at Omega. As the airlock sealed and I got my first good look at the interior, I knew, something was going to happen here, I just didn't know what it was.

TO BE CONTINUED…

**And so, the crew lands at Omega! The last passage there was a bit short and I apologies. I just want to update this story and I couldn't well end with them waiting in line to use the relay could I? Anyways, it would seem that Saren's goons have found something! In space! With UNSC markings! What could it be? Find out next time on HALOME: NOW YOU SEE ME NOW YOU DON'T!**


End file.
